Earlier this month, New York Governor Kathy Hochul signed a $254 billion state budget — several weeks late.
And while the fiscal year 2026 spending plan contains several policy items and investments in programs that fund education, infrastructure, and economic development, not everything advocates had hoped for made it into the final package.
For the perspective of the New York League of Conservation Voters, WAMC’s Lucas Willard spoke with the non-profit’s policy director, Patrick McClellan. They began by discussing a $1 billion investment into the state’s climate-focused Sustainable Future Program.
So, the billion dollars that's in this year's state budget is, in our view, kind of a down payment on climate action in the state, because we do also need to advance an economy-wide program to reduce emissions and raise revenue for climate programs. Now, in New York, the program that is supposed to accomplish that is called Cap and Invest. That's where the state would set a declining cap on greenhouse gas emissions economy-wide. So, any entity above a certain threshold that produces greenhouse gas emissions would be subject to this, and if they exceed the cap, they would have to purchase credits to offset that, and the revenue from those credits would go to the state and be dedicated in a lock box in the state budget for climate action, and we estimate that in the first year of that program, it would raise about $3 billion for climate mitigation and adaptation. The draft rules for that were supposed to have been published in January of this year. There has now been an indefinite delay in the publication of those rules. So, we're still pushing for that, because it's the single biggest and most effective thing the state can do to address climate change. But in the absence of movement on that, we do view this billion dollars as kind of a down payment to get the ball rolling on decarbonization, especially in some areas that really need state support to be able to the kinds of emission cuts that we need.
Now, apart from that and one of the primary emissions-related pieces of legislation that has been talked about a lot is the New York HEAT Act. And this is something that has been brought up, and then it hasn't made it through for the last couple of sessions now, between now and the end of the session, where will your group's advocacy go in pushing for the New York HEAT Act?
Yeah, the New York HEAT Act is our biggest priority now that the budget is finally complete, and I think that that's true of most of the environmental groups in the state. We are we are really pushing for this to get through both houses of the legislature before the end of session in June. So, the Senate has passed New York HEAT in the last several legislative sessions, and so we feel pretty confident that we have majority support there, and that when the time comes, if a deal has been struck on the bill, that we won't have any challenges there. Getting the bill passed in the Assembly has been more of an uphill fight, and so that's really where we're focusing our efforts. In particular, members from more rural districts and districts that face more extreme weather in the winter are most concerned about it because they have a lot of questions about, you know, what do our constituents do if they don't have natural gas, if they're on a zero-emission heating system, is that still as effective as natural gas? And there are answers to those questions. The technology has really improved in leaps and bounds. And so, you know, we can confidently say no one is going to be left out in the cold, metaphorically, who are literally, the technology is there to both decarbonize how we are heating our homes and make sure that everyone is still safe and comfortable and well heated in the wintertime. But it's really about talking to those individual legislators, answering the questions they have, and reassuring them that this is something that can move forward and, you know, improve air quality in New York, reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, but not take away any anyone's heating, not make anyone uncomfortable, not add cost burdens to folks. And really, this is something that can be a win-win.
Now, I also want to point out that while the HEAT Act hasn't made it over the finish line yet, that there are things in this budget, including an expansion of a tax credit for geothermal, included. So, there are things in this budget to incentivize adopting more efficient heating and cooling systems and practices. But it's not the main electrification legislation that we call the HEAT Act.
That's right, yeah, so there is a doubling of the geothermal tax credit from $5,000 to $10,000 which is a big deal. There's also $200 million in that sustainable future program that we were discussing earlier for thermal energy networks, and that's when you network a campus of buildings or under a residential neighborhood on a geothermal heating and cooling system. And that's really exciting, because that's an opportunity to decarbonize buildings at scale, so that you're not going one building at a time and installing heat pumps, that you can get, you know, an entire college campus or an entire urban neighborhood all at once. And that's when you really start to see rapid gains in decarbonization. And those are those are also job creators, thermal energy networks.
Now I know that the New York League of Conservation Voters is not solely focused on environmental and energy efficiency policy, but also voter participation. And one of the items that your group is going to continue working on is advanced automatic voter registration. Can you tell me a little bit about that legislation and where you hope it goes in the remaining months of the session?
Yeah, so AVR, as we abbreviate it, is legislation that would automatically enroll New Yorkers to vote, unless they choose to proactively opt out of it when they interact with the Department of Motor Vehicles or with the state Medicaid system. What is slowing that down is that we really need to make sure that people are citizens when they interact with that for a couple of reasons. One is that, obviously, you need to be a citizen to vote. We don't want to make any mistakes. We don't want to accidentally enroll someone who is not a citizen on the voter rolls, because that would it would be illegal, and it would create a lot of problems. Number two is that there's a concern in general about privacy, especially for non-citizens, with the current federal administration and so, you know, we really want to make sure that the details are right here, so that we are enrolling as many people who are eligible to vote as possible, but also that we have really clear safeguards in place to make sure that no one who is not a citizen is accidentally enrolled to vote. So, that's at a very technical level, those discussions. Honestly, it's beyond the level of negotiations that I have been involved in, and so I think it's really a question of, ‘Do we have time left before the legislature adjourns for the year to work out those technical details and reach a deal on the bill?’
Now I do want to point out that Republicans in Congress, as part of their budget, are pushing for the SAVE Act, and that is the Republican voter registration bill that would require voters show a proof of citizenship, like a passport or a birth certificate, while voting rights advocates have said that the language in the bill would disenfranchise potentially millions of voters. So, where do you find that balance between the SAVE Act on the right and then this advanced automatic voter registration act that also has safeguards against people who are not citizens illegally enrolling to vote?
Yeah, I think the question is just, you know, ‘What types of documents do you accept as proof of citizenship?’ And what is in the SAVE Act is so restrictive that it could end up, you know, accidentally or intentionally banning trans people from being able to register to vote, banning married women who have changed their last name from being able to vote, and all kinds of consequences like that, because it is so, so strict in its definition of how you prove that you're a citizen. And with ABR in New York, you know, we want to look at a broader universe of things, which is, by the way, the historical norm here. There are, you know, plenty of times when you interact with the your municipal or state or federal government where you have to prove that you are a citizen. And, you know, in almost none of them is a birth certificate or a passport the only acceptable way of proving your citizenship. And so, again, you know, we want to be careful with AVR and make sure that we're doing this right. But what is in the SAVE Act is so restrictive and ends up, if it is enacted into law, would disenfranchise potentially millions of people that that is really a move in the exact opposite, wrong direction.
Now, Patrick, obviously there's a lot more in the budget as well, but is there anything else that you'd like to point out that the New York League of Conservation Voters is celebrating in the new state budget.
Yeah, on funding, I would say that the other big wins in this budget are $500 million for clean water infrastructure funding. You know, no state in the country has been as committed to clean water funding as New York has been. It's a major issue with the emergence of new contaminants like PFAS chemicals, with harmful algal blooms and things like that. And so, I think it's a really positive sign of the state's continued commitment and leadership to making sure that everyone has access to clean water, to include that $500 million. There was also in the budget, $425 million for something called the Environmental Protection Fund, which gives out grants for smaller scale environmental projects in every corner of the state. There is truly no community in the state that doesn't benefit from the EPF. And $425 million is a historically high funding level for that in a year where a lot of our budget requests were kept stable without increases, because I think the legislature and the governor are concerned about the possibility of a recession. I think it's a big deal to get a $25 million increase in the EPF.
